Alex Kotlowitz talks to an ex-gang member who gives the barbers at his Cicero shop second and third—even fourth—chances to turn their lives around.

Alex Kotlowitz spends a few hours at a Near West Side pawnshop, where the customers are folks who “are walking—sometimes running—one step away from losing a home, or a job, or a lover, or a way of life.”

Alex Kotlowitz, our inaugural writer-in-residence, tells the story of Eddie Bocanegra, one of the characters in the new documentary The Interrupters, and discusses the effects of violence on individuals and communities.